


That Which You Know

by contrequirose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Introspection, Multi, Spoilers for episode 64, canon typical warnings for Caleb's backstory, does this make sense? maybe not. am i so fucking excited by possible astrid and eodwulf? yes., me thinking about astrid and eodwulf: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 19:07:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18947044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrequirose/pseuds/contrequirose
Summary: It is foolish to have hope, but he keeps it anyways, locked and silent in his heart.He doesn't know if he can face it any other way.(I forgot,,, to put a summary on this........ this is what i get for not sleeping and writing this instead)





	That Which You Know

It has been sixteen years, and some days, and some months that he doesn’t remember – and it kills him, not knowing the exact dates, the times and figures and occasions that led up to it – since he last saw Astrid and Eodwulf.

He thinks, at least.

The memories he has from the asylum are fragmented and broken and shattered, the pieces of his mind trembling from trying to break through modified memories and compulsions unreliable. They may have visited him. They might not have. He remembers – remembers is the wrong word. There’s a feeling, that they did visit while he was broken-empty-wrong, that they cried and held his face and promised to fix him, to help him, to save him, but –

But –

There are many things, thoughts-sights-feelings from the asylum that he knows were dreams. Illusions let loose in his mind that ran rampant in the shattered remains and morphed themselves into memories.

It does not make sense for them to have visited him, after he had failed, after they had successfully accomplished the very same task he broke trying to achieve.

He wishes that what he remembers was true, because it was soft and they were worried and they forgave him and they were kind, but he knows that it is not true because of all those things, because they could not afford to be kind, under Ikithon.

Being soft had no place in the world they were being trained to murder for.

He’s terrified, now, that that same harshness that they pushed for so readily in their youth is still present. That his friends – his fellow students – his partners in arcana are still under Ikithon’s grasp. Still dealing with the memories and compulsions and lies, the experiments and torture and killing.

He doesn’t like thinking about what remains of his friends, now, after sixteen years they have spent killing without him.

He is a traitor now, in deeds if not intent, and if they find him –

How can he face them.

How can he, he who was weak, who broke, who watched them kill their own parents and not blink but disintegrated when he attempted to do the same, he who lived eleven years empty and five years half-dead, he who has tied himself to these people, tied himself to the dynasty that his friends would be fighting against in this war –

How will he stand and face Astrid-and-Eodwulf-and- ~~Bren,~~ with the truth of the situation on his side and no way of telling them that their lives for the better part of two decades have been wrong.

He doesn’t think he can. They – they will find him, and they will kill him, for breaking and for being a traitor and for leaving, and they may be right, and just, but he doesn’t –

 

Maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t want to die.

 

This war, this conflict – there are hundreds of thousands of lives at stake, lives that he could save, that he could help Astrid and Eodwulf save if he could break them free of Ikithon. If he could get through to them, reach out with hope and trust because they were tortured, they were manipulated, they did terrible things and they did them of their own volition but when their own volition and purpose was twisted into malicious shapes – maybe –

 

He is not innocent. He will never be, not with the soot that coats his hands and memories, but he can work towards a better tomorrow.

His friends, now – Beauregard and Jester and Caduceus and Fjord and Yasha, and Nott – they know bits and pieces of his story, of what crimes he’s committed, what terrors he contains within himself.

But now – that letter – if Astrid finds Jester’s mother, finds Nott’s son if they send him there, finds him – too many ifs. They don’t understand so much of what’s happening, too many unknowns for him to plan around.

He describes Astrid to Jester, for her mother to look out for, even though he doesn’t have the words for what she looked like.

He tells her: she was shorter, your height, brown hair, brown eyes, the same scars that ruin his own arms.

What he doesn’t tell her: she was charming, when she wanted to be, and vicious more often. Talented, immeasurably so, brilliant at conjuration and poisons and staying silent and motionless while Ikithon attempted to pull information from behind her clenched teeth. She was terrible at dancing, until she wasn’t, and then she was so much better than he was. She liked soft blankets and pillows and lazy mornings that they never got a chance at, and she liked honey in her oatmeal and hated cheese for reasons he and Wulf didn’t comprehend. She had loved him, and he had loved her.

 

He mentions Eodwulf to Jester, because he is just as dangerous even if he hasn’t mentioned him to her before. He tells her: tall, taller than him, muscular, talented, black hair, blue eyes, crystalline scars.

He doesn’t tell her: He had loved him as well, and he had loved him back, and Eodwulf had been able to pick both him and Astrid up and carry them when they were tired and hurting an exhausted. Wulf had strong arms and stronger thoughts and he was brilliant, and loved raspberries and sweet things and bread, and he had been the best at dancing out of all three of them. He had long hair before Ikithon cut it, hair that he had braided and fiddled and played with throughout the day, put beads in and ribbons and bright things at the academy before hair was shorn away for fear of it being used against them.

 

He had loved them. They had loved him, in that time of terror and pain and justice.

 

Maybe –

 

Sometimes, he wonders if they can be saved.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> astrid... and eodwulf...............................
> 
>  
> 
> let them come out of this okay, liam and matthew.
> 
> let's build a little hope.
> 
> (thanks for reading! new chapter of the art of scraping through up tonight or tomorrow morning, if you're following that, and new chapter of umbra (otherwise known as daemon au) up late tonight!)


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